CHAPTER FOUR:  THE LINEAR MODEL AS SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY

Introduction:  Marxism and the Linear Model

In this chapter of the dissertation, there follows a brief history of technological innovation in the USSR.  This historical narrative of innovation is presented because it is the best way to display the inherent weaknesses of the Soviet system with respect to technological innovation:  generalized discussions of the problem tend to blur the distinctions periods;  and a single snapshot in time fails to capture the dynamics of the system.  Therefore, an historical narrative offers the best hope of explaining the reason why the Soviets failed to transform the economy from the extensive to the intensive path of growth. 

There are two main points to be made in course of the following narrative:  one, that both the Party leadership and the Scientific-Technical Intelligentsia (STI) have approached technological and social development from the standpoint of faith in the linear model;  two, that without spontaneous, self-regulating feedback mechanisms (a free press and a free market) technological progress in the Soviet Union worked better under Party control and guidance (as with Stalin and Brezhnev) than when scientists and engineers were left alone to follow their own inspiration, directly contrary to theories which suggest that the technocrats can run the system better than the partocrats;  it will also be stressed that, as the Soviet Union's economy became more and more complex in the seventies and eighties, the Party's efficiency in handling feedback--its ability to provide bureaucratic push--became less and less efficient.  Efforts to push along technological innovation became extraordinarily difficult, even for relatively minor innovations. 

The evidence presented in this chapter is offered as an explanation of why the USSR failed to keep technological pace with the West despite its enormous effort to do so.   This chapter is also provided as further evidence that the linear model is a poor heuristic device, and that the concept of feedback more correctly describes the complicated relationship between society, technology and science. 

In the course of the following historical narrative, the differences between "mechanistic" and "organic" administrative styles will also be emphasized.  Studies of innovation and administrative systems show that the most responsive and the least responsive systems with respect to technological innovation have been classified as the "organic" and the "mechanistic" systems, respectively.  Of the two types of administrative systems, the "organic" type of structure is more responsive to the various types of feedback required for innovation.  The mechanistic types of systems, on the other hand, are noted for the departmental and administrative barriers to feedback. 

In the mechanistic type of organizational structure, the response to change is usually to rearrange existing organizational structure, creating new groups or departments, or expanding an existing division which would then become responsible for the new circumstances.  Mechanistic organizations tend to have rigid hierarchical relationships among their units, together with strict lines of authority corresponding to the various levels of the hierarchy.  Communication patterns between tiers of the mechanistic hierarchy are formal and run from top to bottom, unless otherwise solicited.  And those who work in the hierarchical system tend to be functionally isolated from other organizations, even groups with which they have close dealings.  Members of mechanistic organizations tend to "protect their rears" as members of a vast bureaucratic army.  The history of the Soviet Governmental structure is nothing if not a series of such departmental reshufflings, a virtual "treadmill of reform."      On the other hand, organic systems tend to blur and traverse interdepartmental distinctions and procedures.  They also tend to have more open lines of communication than mechanistic systems, running vertically among all sections as well as horizontally.  Persons in the organic system may lose much personal autonomy by virtue of the fact that the purpose of the group takes precedence over any one person's formal authority.  "Not only is the life he leads and its emotional and intellectual content more contingent on his participation in the working organization;  he is drawn more frequently and more closely into personal relationships with the other members of the organization.  He is no longer 'left to get on with the job himself.'" 

In the course of the following narrative, it will be argued that the Soviet government resembles the mechanistic type of administrative system, while the Party apparatus resembles the organic type of system.  Although hierarchical relationships are fairly descriptive of the Party apparatus, the above quoted definition of the personal relationships in the organic system is much more typical of the Party than of the government.  This "organic" system is a fairly accurate portrait of the Party apparatus, where qualities of loyalty, group solidarity, and partiinost' characterize the members of the nomenklatura.  Party members are more likely to be promoted for sacrificing their own interests for the sake of the group than are ministerial administrators, who are judged more closely by the fulfillment of plan.  Hence, "bureaucratic push" is much more likely to come from the Party than the government. 

Marxism, Leninism, and the Linear Model of Social Development

It is generally well known that the "Marxian paradigm" is commensurate with "technological determinism," i.e., the belief that technical change causes social change, and that technical change is independent of social forces.  Marx referred to technology as a "prime mover" and as the most important "independent variable" in history;  indeed, as Langdon Winner pointed out, Marx thought that he had isolated in technology "the primary independent variable in history." 

       Soviet textbooks on Marxism-Leninism define the fundamental elements of society as (1) the productive forces (i.e., the tools, machinery, technology used), (2) the production relations of people which, together with the productive forces, form the economic base of society, and (3) the ideological superstructure.  According to Marxist dogma, when the productive forces of society are changed through "the precision of natural science," then "the entire immense [ideological] superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed" as a consequence.  When technological innovation transforms the productive forces of society, the production relations and the ideological superstructure are both transformed as a necessary outcome.  Therefore, by transforming the "material basis" of society through technological innovation, in which the needs and wants of everyone are satisfied, communist consciousness will result as a matter of course. 

It is thus clear that the transformation of the material basis of society through technological progress has always been a central part of Marxist-Leninist ideology.  Lenin, of course, adopted Marx's base paradigm as his own.  Building the productive forces of society--the material basis of communism--was to be guided first and foremost by science.  He said:  "Communist society, as we know, cannot be built unless we restore industry and agriculture, and that, not in the old ways.  They must be re-established on a modern basis, in accordance with the last word in science." 

Thus, in the early years of the USSR, the planning of science was perceived to be commensurate with social planning.  Since science ostensibly produced new technology in its wake, which transformed society by building the material "basis" of communism, the early Bolsheviks viewed science and its alleged offspring, technology, as the twin pillars of the new society.  This is why the electrification of Russia was his first and most important goal for building communism, for after this was achieved, it would be possible, Lenin believed, to renovate "all branches of industry and agriculture" as a matter of course.  "Only when you have achieved that aim," he stated, "will you be able to build for yourselves the communist society which the older generation will not be able to build." 

The belief that the so-called material basis of society determines the cultural level of society is the reason why "the members of the elite have assumed that technological progress is equivalent to social progress, at least in the socialist system, and have ranked it among the highest priorities."  This is why Lenin's formula for the building of socialism was communist party rule plus the electrification of the country:  if the material basis of communism were built, all else--including the evolution of universal communist consciousness (allowing the withering away of the state and the eradication of the distinction between mental and manual labor)--would fall into place.  Technological advance has always occupied a central place in the public pronouncements of the political elite.  One might say that technological advance has been the primary goal of the Party since the founding of the Soviet Union.  It is no exaggeration that the USSR "is a nation with an explicit commitment to science, including a value system and a philosophical world view based on science, which is unmatched in intensity by any other nation in the world." 

The Soviet leadership has consistently approached this primary goal with an unshakable faith in the linear model.  And they believed that the superiority of socialism over capitalism hinged precisely on the ability of socialism to be more technologically dynamic than capitalism.  Marxist-Leninist theory stated that socialist society was capable of a higher level of technological development than capitalist society due to its superior ability to plan technological progress.  Ostensibly, central planning had advantages over the market economy with respect to the "externalities" (i.e., the social benefits) of technological progress (i.e., more efficient products and/or processes).  Since there were in theory no private gains of individuals from technological advance in socialist society, all gains in production efficiency through technology ostensibly accrued to society.  But while this idea sounded good in theory, it worked poorly in practice:  "a number of empirical studies of innovations have indicated that the social returns to invention and innovation often do exceed the private returns (see Scherer, 1980;  Mansfield, et al., 1977)."  In market economies, the "externalities" of technological progress accrue both to individuals and to society.  Indeed, as the above chapter has demonstrated, without the possibility personal gain, there is little incentive for individuals or corporations to innovate. 

In 1918, therefore, Lenin planned the creation of an independent body for coordinating scientific research in the USSR--to be managed by the scientists themselves.  He also wanted a special commissariat for science and technology.  So he entrusted N.P. Gorbanov with the task of writing a statute for this new institution.  The commissariat did not materialize, due to resistance from the Ministry of Education (Narkompros), the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh), and the Academy of Sciences, all of which had their special interests to protect.  A debate ensued, from which VSNKh emerged the winner:  the newly created Scientific-Technical Section (NTO) was to be under the administrative umbrella of VSNKh, limited to matters of innovation and technology in industry, which had responsibility for the central direction of research in industry.  While it centralized the direction of research in industry, it is nevertheless important to note that the NTO operated with considerable autonomy from Party direction:  virtually all of the institutes created during these years were based upon projects initiated by the STI themselves. 

Moreover, at this time, Lenin threw almost all of his political support behind the STI in their disputes with workers, abridging in practice Marxist dogma on the dictatorship of the proletariat.  And many of the workers' groups that favored genuine worker control of industry openly attacked Lenin for his policies.  For example, Alexander Shliapnikov, a metallurgical worker and trade union official, openly attacked the Party and accused Lenin of "pandering to specialists";  a nice twist to his invective was his insistence that the party adopt a new slogan, "everything for the specialists."  But Lenin responded by outlawing "specialist baiting," and by ramming through legislation protecting the rights of industrial scientists.  Bailes notes that physical attacks on specialists were no longer treated as cases of criminal assault, but were labelled as "terrorist acts."  Lenin declared:  "Scholars are absolutely essential to us:  we must fight the Party cells to the hilt."      The point to be made from the above is simply that the STI themselves directed the centralization and planning of Soviet technology and science.  The STI believed, as did Lenin and Bukharin, that "the future belongs to the managing-engineers and engineering-managers."  As Bailes pointed out, the Soviet government shared the technical intelligentsia's interest in bringing science and the economy closer together, and in creating institutes that would encourage collective research, that is, research that often crossed older disciplinary lines and was problem-oriented and 'practical.'"  Indeed, as Bailes also points out, central control of planning and coordinating applied R & D had been a dream of many specialists for years, "a value which the Communist Party emphatically shared with leading elements of the technical intelligentsia."  As Alexander Vucinich put it, government authorities and academicians were in basic agreement in two respects:  "both accepted and espoused the Baconian utilitarian view of science, and both viewed advance in [scientific] theory as the most reliable index of progress.  They also agreed that the entire spectrum of scientific endeavor could contribute to the progress of the national economy." 

The Party program of March 1919 mentioned the need to further develop the country's technological resources in order to create the most fruitful conditions for applied scientific work, while simultaneously noting that the STI, "in the majority of cases, are inevitably impregnated with bourgeois attitudes and habits."  Nevertheless, Lenin instructed Dzerzhinskii (head of the Cheka) to publish an order which stated that repressive measures should only be taken against the bourgeois specialists when it had been unequivocally established that they were working to overthrow the government.  Himself a "Mechanist" (who believed that natural scientists were by practice, if not by ideology, dialectical materialists), Lenin ordered that NTO become an "independent" organization, which he believed would accomplish more than the trust controlled laboratories working on routine applied problems.  Unlike Bailes, who argued that this attitude marked a degree of tolerance in Lenin, I would argue that "tolerance" never became one of Lenin's virtues.  On the contrary, this attitude demonstrates Lenin's faith in the linear model. 

Managed by scientists and engineers, NTO tended to be occupied more with theoretical than with applied science.  Strains between the expectations of the STI and the expectations of industrialists began to appear very early.  For example, in 1923 Pyatakov (head of VSNKh SSSR) tried to dissolve NTO and place each research organization directly under the direction of the industrial trust for which it worked.  Ipatieff and his supporters in the Presidium of VSNKh won the debate over NTO, but the matter re-opened a year later in 1924.  Unhappy with the pace at which the NTO worked, Pyatakov thought that a decentralized system more directly responsive to the needs of industry would improve the performance of the research institutes.  Pyatakov appointed a special commission under the Chief Economic Administration of VSNKh to study the effectiveness of NTO, because opponents of the institution thought that there were too many administrative barriers between research and industry and that it was an "overloaded" bureaucratic organization.  The commission ruled in NTO's favor, stating in its findings that applied science would produce favorable results "only where backed by widely based exploratory research."  The commission also defended the work of NTO as of ultimate (though not immediate) value to the whole economy.  Nevertheless, in recognition of the problem of the divorce between the direction of research done at the institutes and the needs of industry, the commission recommended that ties between the NTO and industry should be strengthened by creating a "Technical Conference" composed of scientists and those in industry. 

At this point, it is necessary to digress from the historical narrative and discuss the origins of the debate between VSNKh and NTO, which was to become a continuous theme in Soviet history.  These disputes between the STI and the industrialists can be understood in terms of the failure to recognize the profound differences between science and technology.  Whereas the STI in charge of the NTO believed that supporting basic research was the best strategy with respect to technological progress (in alignment with the linear model), VSNKh stressed technological R&D in the service of the national economy.  In alignment with the linear model, both the scientists and the Party functionaries agreed that science was essential for technological progress;  but they diverged over the practical efficacy of basic over applied research, which Vucinich described as a "deep cleavage."  "While the leading scientists resolutely adhered to the idea that science is a prime mover of technological development, the ideologues argued that the needs of technology should be the prime mover of scientific research."  It was easy for influential Academicians to convince the government officials (who lacked scientific or technical expertise) that "the most abstruse branches of modern science were potentially the most promising." 

While it is easy to sympathize with anyone who resists Party control in the USSR, it must not be overlooked that such statements by the STI fit the category of "snow jobs" aimed at increasing professional autonomy, a central value of basic researchers.  As Kornhauser pointed out, "Professional science favors contributions to knowledge rather than to profits;  high quality research rather than low-cost research;  long range programs rather than short-term results;  and so on.  Industrial organizations favor research services to operations and commercial development of research.  These differences breed conflict of values and goals;  they also engender conflicting responsibilities and struggles for power."  (Emphasis mine.)  In addition, the conflict in values and goals includes disagreements over who should set goals and over how research policy should be determined. 

This principle of the subordination of the research worker to an outside purpose is typical of American and other firms which successfully innovate.  The trauma of re-socialization from the norms of science to the norms of technology can be very painful for the researcher.  Kornhauser cites one example where a cleavage developed within a corporation in which the "research people" were pitted against the "development people."  Kornhauser reports that the scientific-minded viewed the laboratory as an opportunity for fundamental research, whereas the development people wanted the laboratory to continue product engineering.  In this case, the shortage of highly trained specialists forced the company to favor the research faction.  When management is in a more favorable bargaining position, however, it will, "as a rule," take responsibility for development of new products or processes out of the hands of the "research people."  "In fact," he adds, "the top executives of the corporation have made the major decisions regarding the coordination of development activities, thereby sharply curtailing the jurisdiction of research managers." 

Returning to the historical narrative, the "Technical Conference" failed to create organic links between science and industry:  in 1925, only a year after the ruling of the special commission, Pyatakov again forcefully brought up the problem of the divorce between research and the needs of industry, and called for a solid organizational link between research and industry.  But the problem with strengthening this link between the direction of research and industry was the fact that Dzerzhinskii supported NTO, which no doubt influenced the findings of the above commission.  Meanwhile, Ipatieff defended NTO by taking refuge in the classic linear model:  speaking of the necessity of "pure" research as the harbinger of technology, he stated that institutes "cannot have in mind the interests of a particular enterprise, but must consider general goals, general objectives, objectives which are of a scientific rather than a purely practical nature."  If the scientific manpower were dispersed throughout the country to work in individual industrial trusts, he argued, "there would be no state control over the correct organization and administration of the institutes."  Moreover, there would be duplication of research efforts, a waste of resources. 

Note that Ipatieff, head of NTO and a scientist who had refused to join the Communist Party for ideological reasons several times, defended the linear model with the support of the Old Bolsheviks, including Lenin, Bukharin, Trotsky and even Dzerzhinskii.  Despite NTO's failure to spur technological progress, the Party leadership defended NTO based upon their faith in the linear model.  For example, Trotsky said in 1925 that individual scientists conducting their own research without worrying about social utility were really producing that utility.  If the Bolsheviks and the STI diverged greatly over political and other matters, they both agreed that technology was the offspring of science, and that the "correct" way to transform the material basis of society was to facilitate scientific research.  Yet this policy failed.

In 1926, when the glavki were first formed directly under the Presidium of VSNKh, many industrial managers wanted to decentralize NTO and place institutes directly under the responsibility of enterprises.  Yet Lenin, Bukharin and Dzerzhinskii supported the autonomy of NTO, arguing that it was necessary "to treat the scientific and technical establishments very carefully, bearing in mind their significance and importance."  Nevertheless, Ipatieff was sacked as head of NTO in 1927 due to his poor record of with respect to R & D, and was replaced by V.M. Sverdlov, an industrial administrator.  The new head of NTO emphasized the necessity of serving production, a demeaning step for pure researchers.  He transformed NTO into the Scientific and Technical Administration (NTU) and insisted that it "had to become support for economic organizations in the maximum application of scientific achievements to the practical activity of production." 

Despite all of these failures to plan spur technological innovation, Bukharin wrote in 1927 that "planned scientific work is the new principle which is quite fundamentally linked to socialism's planned economy."  Graham pointed out that during NEP, "the idea of the planning of science was even in this period clearly accepted by most of the government administrators, as well as by many economists and sociologists;  the scholarly journals contained many articles discussing the ways in which such planning could be accomplished.  In the relatively free period before the first five-year plan, the writers on the planning of science seemed to believe their designs would be accepted voluntarily, at least by scientists with a political commitment to the regime."  (Emphasis mine.)

Bukharin was probably the most ardent advocate of planning Soviet science (and technology).  He outlined five phases of science which he thought susceptible to planning.  The first stage was that of determining the percentage of the nation's GNP to be devoted to planning science.  The second phase concerned assigning logistical support to scientific research institutes.  The third stage dealt with assigning the optimum geographical location for the institute, much like one plans the location of a factory.  The fourth object of planning concerned the education, training and placement of personnel in the most rational manner possible.  The fifth element of planning concerned the subjects of research to be undertaken by the scientists.  Bukharin devoutly believed in the linear model, and thought that theoretical research in science ultimately paid dividends in some type of application.  He thought that the most important reason for planning scientific research was its applicability to the needs of the national economy.   

A year later in 1928--despite the poor track record of the newly organized NTU--the Party urgently stressed its belief that the decisive issue with respect to economic development remained "the improvement of technology," and called for new industrial plants based on "the latest scientific achievements."  Passionately believing in the linear model, the Fifteenth Party Congress in this same year suggested a larger role for "scientific technology," and further demanded "the closest tie of science, technology, and production" together with a "decisive convergence" of research with economic planning. 

   Stalin and the "Great Break"

Troyanovskii, a planner from GOSPLAN, summed up what was to become two different approaches to the planning of science in November of 1929.  In an article in Nauchnyi Rabotnik, he said that science (and its alleged offspring, technology) could be planned either through the "statification" (ogosudarstvlenie) of science, where planning was left to the Party and the state, or through its "socialization" (obshchestvlenie), where planning would be left to the scientists themselves.  Whereas Lenin, Bukharin, Trotsky et al opted for the latter approach, Stalin and his supporters opted for the former approach. 

By the time of the first five-year plan, the STI had achieved an amazing degree of ideological and professional autonomy.  The STI were, in fact, a major obstacle to Stalin's ambitious five-year plans.  Hence, most of the defendants in the Shakhty and Industrial Party show trials were opponents of the first five-year plans.  Moreover, their unified technocratic outlook, based upon the linear model, "predisposed them to take strong stands regarding issues of professional policy with social implications, in opposition to the Stalinist leadership."  The most important social policy over which they disagreed with Stalin was the matter of education, which revealed the frustration of the political leadership over the failure of the STI to devote themselves to practical technological problems. 

In 1928, Stalin put forward a resolution to turn over control of all higher technical education to the Supreme Council of the Economy (VSNKh), i.e., to the industrial ministries.  The political moderates and the STI opposed this move, and remained in favor of keeping education under the control of the Commissariat of Education (Narkompros).  On the one side of the debate, the STI and Narkompros emphasized the necessity of theory and of sound general preparation.  They accused the existing industrial colleges of turning out graduates who "lacked independence and were often helpless to solve new tasks."  Lunacharsky, head of Narkompros, argued that "there is a certain minimum of general scientific culture which an engineer must master and which we cannot dispense with."  On the other side of the debate, Stalin and his cronies attacked Narkompros for being too theoretically oriented, for producing "artists and ballet dancers."  They disliked the "bourgeois" intelligentsia who had "a quick intellectual grasp of the bookish type." 

As is well-known, Stalin won the debate over education, Narkompros was emasculated, and control of educational issues shifted to VSNKh.  Clearly, however, an underlying issue during the "cultural revolution" of 1928-1932 was the need for applied science (engineering), and not fundamental research.  By taking technological and scientific education out of the hands of Narkompros and placing it in the hands of VSNKh and industrial managers, education was to have produced scientists and engineers who were oriented toward technology, not science.  Along with class quotas in education, Stalin instituted a policy of promoting the praktiki (engineers who had no formal training, but who nevertheless exhibited technological problem-solving skills).  The applied approach under Stalin produced graduate engineers who considered it "a scandal to learn the achievements of world technology," rather than creating their own.  Whereas industrial managers told their designers to give them machines based on the latest achievements of foreign technology, the new "red" specialists thought it necessary not to copy foreign models, but to introduce "something new," something "of his own." 

Much has been written on the Mechanist-Deborinite debates of the late twenties, focussing on the philosophical and ideological aspects of the debates.  These works are extremely valuable and informative;  but it is clear that these debates were more than ideological and philosophical battles:  they were aimed at reducing the professional autonomy of scientists and engineers, at bringing the STI more directly into problems of production.  As Joravsky put it, "the clear tendency of official policy during the [late] 'twenties was to undermine the ideological autonomy of natural scientists."  Bailes asks:  "Did not the engineers and scientists represent a new stratum whose place in modern society seemed guaranteed indefinitely by the imperatives of industrialization?  If their knowledge gave them control over the means of production, then what was to prevent the new technological elites from seizing political power in postcapitalist society?" 

It seems clear that the main reason for the Mechanist-Deborinite debates was not the ideological autonomy of natural scientists, who abjured Marxist dogma as a matter of principle.  Even the intolerant Lenin lived with this.  I would argue that the most important reason behind the debates and the show trials of the STI was the professional and political independence of scientists and engineers, who had skillfully manipulated Lenin's faith in the linear model to their own advantage.  If the linear paradigm was not in error, as Marxist dogma assured, then the STI were to have been the managers of the new society.  Apparently Lenin believed that this would happen, for he reportedly said that in the new Soviet state, "not only will politicians and administrators hold forth, but also engineers and agronomists.  This is the beginning of a very happy era, when politicians will grow ever fewer in number, when people will speak of politics more rarely and at less length, and when engineers and agronomists will do most of the talking."  (Emphasis mine.)

Stalin, on the other hand, also attacked the professional and political independence of the STI because of his faith in the linear model.  Despite the Party's best efforts and assistance, the STI had failed to build the material basis of communism.  Therefore, he reasoned that there must have been something wrong with the STI.  The answer was found in the "bourgeois" attitudes of the STI, many of whom had received their education under the Tsars.  According to Markov, a Stalin crony, Bolsheviks like Bukharin were ideological captives of the old specialists, who had become "overweened" and needed to be "brought down to earth."  Both the cultural revolution and the first show trials resonate with need to connect scientists and engineers with the needs of industry, with the need to form an organic link between technological research and actual needs of industry, with the need to abridge the elitist attitude of the nation's top scientists.  And as Burns and Stalker pointed out, the organic connection makes more demands upon the professional autonomy of scientists and technologists:  they are required to devote more and more of their time and mental capacities to functional activities which are "less and less their own sphere." 

There is thus a strong connection between the unbridled professional autonomy of scientists and engineers based upon the linear paradigm and the failure of the USSR to become technologically dynamic.  When technological innovation did not materialize as promised, Stalin blamed the failure on the "bourgeois," elitist attitudes of the STI.  And there is some justification in this charge:  Joravsky rightfully points out that the vast majority of scientists and engineers were as little Bolshevik or Marxist at the end of the twenties as at the start;  and their dedication to building the material basis of communism was as weak in the late twenties as at the beginning.  But this was not a matter of political sabotage or even truculence:  it was a matter of professional socialization and the difficulties in making scientists become engineers.  It was a matter of poor feedback mechanisms, of the lack of either "market pull" and "bureaucratic push." 

Under the guidance of the STI, technological progress was dreadfully slow.  For example, in 1928, the People's Commissariat of Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate (NKRKI) reported to the Council of People's Commissars on the industrial research network.  Their findings concluded that the links between research and industry were too tenuous to be useful.  This was also the first occasion in which the term vnedrenie (which carries the meaning that forward motion encounters resistance in the surrounding medium, and implies the necessity to push against obstacles) was used to describe the process of innovation.  NKRKI reported that, of eleven major pieces of research completed by the Karpov Chemical Institute, only three had been adopted by the chemical industry.  And only one of the twenty-four institutes under VSNKh, the Scientific Chemical Pharmaceutical Institute, was reported to have "more or less satisfactory" links with the industries it served.  "It seems, therefore, that the outcome of a lot of the applied research undertaken took the form of papers and reports rather than products and processes."  One would have expected a better return on investment. 

Under Stalin's terrorist leadership, however, the Soviet government pushed scientists and technologists to concentrate on topics of clear social utility.  While the Stalinist tactics were clearly unjustified from the standpoint of human rights, they were nevertheless necessary for overcoming bureaucratic inertia, for overcoming the professional and institutional barriers to innovation in the USSR.  Hence, the government-drafted charter of the Academy of Sciences in 1930 (which the Academy had little choice but to accept) put new weight on economically useful research;  and soon after the new charter, the Academy received a major increase in contractual financing of Academy research by economic organs, along with a noticeable shift in the disciplines of newly elected members away from basic research toward technological fields.  This fundamentally transformed the original purpose of the Academy away from doing fundamental research.  Within the Academy of Science, the number of researchers grew from 1,018 in 1927 to 7,090 in 1937.  The Academy's budget rose from 3 million rubles per year in 1928 to 28 million in 1934, and exploded to over 175 million rubles per year in 1940.  And this expansion of the Academy was aimed primarily at servicing projects of importance to the national economy, a clear shift in emphasis from basic to technological research, from internal direction of research to external direction of research. 

Nevertheless, the links between research institutes under the direction of the industrial ministries and the industrial enterprises they serviced remained weak.  Trying to create more organic links between research and industry, Bukharin suggested in 1932 that factories be attached informally to various branch research institutes, strengthening the ties between research and production.  The problem with the present system, he noted, was the lack "of any firm structure of responsibility for the industrial application of completed research."  As a result of Bukharin's suggestions, the Party had worked out a detailed administrative procedure for promoting technological innovation by 1932.  The Party resolutions described these procedures in some detail, and outlined the role of each partner in the process of innovation very clearly, a clear departure away from the professional autonomy of the STI. 

First, after checking the results of their research at a "pilot" plant, the research institutes had to send the technical report to the relevant trust or factory.  Second, after having been notified by the research institute, the plant or trust had to inform both the Scientific Research Sector (NIS) and the glavk of its having received a report.  Third, the factory or trust had to notify the glavk and the NIS of the procedure they received, and to either adopt it, or give detailed reasons for rejecting it.  If the industrial organization chose to adopt the innovation, the glavk concerned became responsible for helping to establish the new processes and procedures.  If the industrial organization chose not to adopt the proposed innovation, and it was found that they gave insufficient reason for having done so, the glavk could order its adoption and bear the responsibility for its adoption. 

Despite the detailed responsibility for innovation, "the evidence suggests that no radical improvement in the rate of vnedrenie resulted."  For example, of the thirty-seven projects completed by the State Optical Institute at the specific request of the optico-mechanical industry in 1933, only seven had been adopted.  Similarly, the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry did a study of innovation in the plastics industry and found that the projects completed by the Leningrad Plastics Institute found little reception in industry;  and the projects which industry adopted were slow in being implemented.  In several cases, Lewis reports, it took the direct intervention of Ordzhonikidze himself to ram through an innovation. 

     All of these handicaps notwithstanding, the Soviet leaders still believed in the superiority of the socialist system over the capitalist system with respect to technological innovation.  For example, in 1934, the Seventeenth Party Congress predicted that by 1939, the USSR would be "the most technologically advanced state in Europe."  And research and development were to provide the key to this success.  Backing up this rhetoric with muscle, the Soviet leadership increased capital investment in research and development 300 percent during this period.  By 1935, one year into the second five year plan, the USSR already spent twice the proportion of its GNP on R&D than the US.  During the second five year plan, moreover, Ordzhonikidze (Commissar of Heavy Industry) ordered the machine tool industry to increase its types of machine tools from 40 to over 200.  He instructed the industrial design bureaus to make their designs based upon the best of American and European models.  Meanwhile, the Academy of Sciences were forced to sign a "general contract" with the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry that covered a number of research activities of importance to heavy industry, such as work on new sources of energy.  By the mid-thirties, all but a small part of industrial R&D was aimed at servicing national commissariats that controlled industry. 

In spite of the heavy investments in R&D, the USSR continued to lag behind the West in innovation.  The problem was inadequate feedback.  Unlike R&D in the West at that time, where research was performed directly in laboratories attached to industry (thus responsive to market forces), in the USSR there were few "organic" connections between industry and R&D.  In an attempt to organically link engineering with production as it was done in the West, Ordzhonikidze issued a decree in July of 1935 ordering the decentralization of industrial research, bringing the research institutes that served industry directly under the supervision of enterprises which used their services.  Following this logic further, the Party recommended to the Commissariat of Heavy Industry in May of 1936 that some tasks normally done at research institutes be transferred to the plants.  Predictably, the directors of institutes were against decentralization, since this diminished their professional autonomy.  Parrott suggests that "they felt that the demands of enterprise managers would be even less compatible with good applied research than those of higher-level bureaucrats." 

However, the main problem with this decentralization was that it assumed that enterprise directors were actually interested in innovation, as were their counterparts in the West (who operated under market forces).  In reality,  they still had little incentive to do so:  there was little or no feedback--no market pull, and not enough bureaucratic push.  The twin disjunction of "independent" research institutes (which were more interested in theoretical than applied problems) and of industrial enterprises (which had positive incentive not to innovate because it raised production targets) made the relationship between industry and the research institutes largely a formality, in which innovation was "on paper only."  Therefore, "Until the bureaucratic structure within which the factory operated was basically altered to create a strong interest in innovation at the enterprise level, R&D could not be decentralized successfully."  

Meanwhile, the Academy research institutes were further forced to become centers of technological research.  In attempting to overcome the administrative and functional distance between the Academy and industry, the Academy set up a Technological Council in 1934 to coordinate the application of the Academy's basic research.  In 1935, the Party forced the Academy to create the Division of Technological Sciences, devoted to the needs of the economy.  Strong resistance to this emerged from Academicians, who noted that such a division did projects which were "simply not a matter of science but of engineering, and for that there should be an engineering academy."  Only political pressure form the Party overcame the resistance.  And these changes were written into the new charter of the Academy in 1935. 

Still, the connections between Academy research and industrial application remained tenuous.  In 1938, the Academy President ordered all institutes to submit monthly reports on their success in making basic research applicable to industry.  At the same time that the Academy Presidium acknowledged its "direct obligation" to make their research of practical use in industry, both Stalin and the Council of People's Commissars severely criticized the Academy for not connecting its activity with socialist construction.  Moreover, Stalin did his own "boundary work" between science and non-science, and stated that Soviet science "does not allow its old and recognized leaders to enclose themselves in the shell of priests of science, the shell of monopolists of science."  In response to this Stalinist boundary work, the Party set up four new institutes within the Technological Division dealing with fuel production, power engineering, and other applied fields of extreme importance to the industrialization effort. 

Despite Stalin's liberal use of bureaucratic push and the enormous increase in funds committed to R&D, "the immediate return on this investment was small in terms of successful native technical innovations."  The hallmarks of mechanistic administration remained:  the dichotomy between the internal logic of R&D and the priorities of production remained;  and many researchers "continued to pursue projects of fundamental interest to themselves, though less suited to the needs of industry and, therefore, less likely to find quick application there."  Hence, "constant administrative pressure from above was necessary in many cases before responsible managers at the production level would give attention to innovation."

   Stalin and Bureaucratic Push:  A Few Modest Successes

As mentioned in the introduction, bureaucratic push is necessary in a system where there are no market incentives or other feedback mechanisms between society, technology and science.  Thus, Party control of scientists and technologists for the purpose of innovation proved more successful than when the STI were left alone. 

For example, Stalin imported a great deal of foreign technology, a form of bureaucratic push.  Anthony Sutton's study of Soviet technology from 1917-1965 concluded, for example, that "no fundamental industrial innovation of Soviet origin has been identified in the Soviet Union between 1917-1965.  Soviet innovation has consisted, in substance, in adapting those made outside the USSR or using those made by Western firms specifically for the Soviet Union and for Soviet industrial conditions and factor patterns."  Likewise, Lewis reports that the most successful of R&D organizations with respect to successful innovation were the "project organizations," which were responsible for setting up imported technology, done on a project basis for planning entire new plants, and for entirely reconstructing old industries.  Lewis reports that, although only a small part of their work was R&D, "they played a most important role in technological innovation." 

There were, of course, exceptions to the rule of disjunction between research and industry.  Where technological research was successfully brought within the walls of the factory, and where the Party pushed the managers of such factories to innovate, success was achieved.  This is the case with the machine-tool industry, so vital to the development of equipment for other industries.  It was targeted as essential for autarky, and therefore it had both in-house R & D laboratories and much Party involvement in securing supplies, overcoming bottlenecks, etc.  In the machine-tool industry, reliance on foreign technology dramatically declined in the thirties.  Whereas in 1928-1932, 95 percent of the equipment produced by the machine-tool sector was based on foreign design, this percentage dropped to 75 percent in the period between 1933 and 1937, and declined even further to 40 percent between 1938 and 1940.  By 1939, Academician Chudakov pointed to the machine-tool industry as an example of what could be achieved if enterprises would have experimental shops within their own walls. 

The most important pre-war exception to the rule of disjunction between R&D and industry was the aircraft industry.  In contrast to the centralization of R & D that existed in other industries, aircraft design was undertaken by a whole series of small flexible units, which competed with each other, and were under the close control of the highest government and Party organs.  Aircraft designers had strong incentives to innovate, receiving prizes and other encomiums for successful work.  In contrast to civilian industry, where managers usually made the decision to adopt new technology (unless otherwise ordered), aircraft R&D personnel working for the ministry of defense themselves supervised the development of prototypes and even the establishment of production lines.  Due to the pressure of competition and the prestige associated with aircraft design--aided and abetted by Stalin's direct interest--aeronautical engineers were willing to go to great lengths to get their designs built, unlike the majority of R & D personnel in industry who were content to see their designs on paper. 

Another area where the Party bureaucratic push was effective was in the area of military R&D.  Unlike civilian R&D, which sought to limit the "duplication" of research, the Party leadership fostered competition among military design bureaus.  Unlike the civilian sector, which often lacked research facilities and test equipment, the miliary was well supported.  But most important of all, Party push was far more prevalent in military R&D than in the nonmilitary enterprises. 

      The Impact of World War Two

The most important technological successes came during World War Two, which brought about drastic changes in the progress of Soviet innovation.  In effect, the nation's "leading scientists" laid down their mantle as theoretical researchers and became "applied" scientists, or to put it more prosaically, common engineers.  Like their colleagues in the United States and England who had volunteered to do practical work, these academic scientists "all had to accept a measure of subordination."  "Many of our activities," reported Academician Ioffe in 1942, "take place not in laboratories but in factories, where we help in constructing prototypes or in developing new manufacturing methods." 

In deed if not in words, Academicians recanted their earlier statements about basic research as the surest and quickest way to technological innovation.  And though there was in general no love lost between the Bolsheviks and the Academy of Sciences, the latter organized the Commission for the Mobilization of the Resources of the Urals for National Defense in the summer of 1941.  Directed by "leading members" of the Academy, as Vucinich reports, the commission sent out a total of 800 scientists (in teams or brigades) to the military-industrial enterprises in the Urals.  More organically linked with the needs of industry, the new brigades were very successful.  The former administrative unit of the Academy Research Institute served only as "frames of reference and budgetary units," and not centers of basic research.  As Vucinich noted, "the war pressure encouraged practical inventions. . .  By bringing scholars closer to the technical processes of production, the experience of World War II helped the scientific community to acquire valuable skills in producing complex instruments of scientific research." 

After the war, the Academy of Sciences returned to the pursuit of pure science.  Yet the success of the brigades of Academy scientists in nuclear fission, rocketry and other areas during the war made it difficult for Academicians to protect themselves against "the ominous attacks by the apostles of Stalinist practicalism."  And the impact of Zhdanovshchina on the Academy was an ideological crackdown and "a patriotic campaign to involve the Academy's staff in the practical application of scientific knowledge."  Therefore, up until Stalin's death, the Academy followed the wartime pattern of sending out brigades of scientists to work directly in assisting technological innovation.  "The task of these brigades was to provide on-the-spot scientific assistance to the designers and builders of hydroelectric power stations, canals and irrigation systems, to trace and elucidate problems whose scientific study is indispensable for blueprinting and building these projects and to maintain close contact with construction."  These projects apparently proved to be very successful:  in 1952, Academician Nesmeianov (president of the Academy)--under pressure to place the Academy under the service of the "Great Stalinist Plan for the Transformation of Nature"--recommended that brigades of scholars become a permanent component of the organization of the Academy.  Due to the unequivocal success of the new "practicalist" approach--which put scientists and engineers to work on technology, not basic science--the brigade system was retained, and "took many forms and deeply affected every phase of the Academy's activities." 

Yet this "practicalist" approach met with disfavor among many members who championed the Academy's tradition of basic research, and thought that science should be left alone to "move forward by its own impulse."  As Vucinich put it, "the growing emphasis on direct participation in practical projects caused grave concern among leading men of science who favored basic research as the most vital function of the Academy."  Moreover, Vucinich adds that the campaign for practical science undercut the "traditional right of the scientific community to serve as a key judge of the social utility of scientific theory."  Others were hard pressed to relate their work to the immediate needs of the national economy.  Still others did not mind the emphasis on applied science (engineering), due to the wartime devastation.  And many continued to echo the Marxist-Leninist view of science as the "mainspring of social well-being," while loudly protesting the pressure to take part in the "brigades of scholars" whose field engineering projects removed them from basic research. 

Khrushchev and the Sovnarkhozy

After Stalin's death, the emphasis on technological over basic research continued.  Between 1951 and 1955, the Technological Division of the Academy added more new members than any other division of the Academy.  And between 1951 and 1956, it added more new institutes and technical specialists than any other division.  By the time of the sensational Twentieth Party Congress of 1956, which marked the ascendancy of Khrushchev, the Technological Division of the Academy outstripped the fundamental research divisions both in terms of personnel and material resources. 

Nevertheless, despite the continual emphasis on basic over applied research, the death of Stalin marked a new chapter in boundary work between science and technology within the Academy of Sciences.  Leading members of the Academy emerged to challenge the Stalinist idea that the primary job of the Academy was to service the technological needs of the national economy.  In 1956, President Nesmeianov argued that the departments of the Academy should be organized according to the internal logic of their particular disciplines (for the sake of basic research), suggesting that this was preferable to the institutes "organized on multidisciplinary lines, such as the Technological Division's Oil Institute."  Nesmeianov stressed that the interdisciplinary connections between institutes (the result of bureaucratic push under Stalin), though positive with respect to the creation of technology, proved a hindrance to basic research.  (This is, of course, a true observation.)  Nesmeianov complained that the Technological Division's activities "had often crossed the boundary that should separate research of far-reaching significance [i.e., fundamental research] from ministerial topics of limited significance [i.e., applied research, that is, engineering]."    

On the other side of the coin, members of the Technological Division demanded more support from the Academy Presidium for technological research, based upon their success in solving strategic technological problems (from the standpoint of the national economy).  There emerged a deep division within the academy:  "while the engineers and the government looked at technical institutes as the very heart of the Academy, the leading scientists looked at them as a misplaced burden hindering the Academy's efforts to widen the horizons of scientific thought." 

In short, the technologists and the scientists came to a mutually advantageous resolution to the problem, which correctly acknowledged that there are "two distinct and separate systems of research," and which dissolved the organic connections between the Academy and industry which had been formed during the war.  There would be two separate systems of research:  one devoted to basic science and the other concerned with the immediate technical needs of industry."  Parrott argues that this arrangement did not prove to be a major loss to the technological dynamism of the USSR, since the Technological Division had, according to Parrott, "enjoyed only modest success." 

Although the new administrative system correctly recognized the profound differences between science and technology, it is clear that this mechanistic readjustment of the system failed to be as technologically dynamic as its more organic organization under Stalin.  In the first place, there were weak feedback mechanisms between those who did science and those who did technology.  Vucinich points out that the Academy created "scientific councils" for the solution of interdisciplinary problems;  but these councils were not concerned with technology, but with "crossing the boundaries of individual disciplines in search of theoretical elaborations dictated by the internal logic of evolving science."  These councils were not, therefore, similar to the highly successful "brigades" that were formed under Stalin's tenure.  Apparently, the main job of these councils was to give young productive scholars a stronger voice in the Academic of Sciences, where older scholars who had "passed the zenith of their scholarly productivity" dominated the direction of basic research. 

Moreover, the leading scientists at the Academy--ever enamored of the linear model (whether out of conviction or as a ploy to gain greater professional autonomy)--continued to state the leitmotif that "the deeper the theoretical abstractions, the more sweeping the range of applied knowledge."  Yet, as noted in the previous chapter, the internal logic of the development of science (which guides the scientist's research) has little to do with the internal logic of the development of technology (which is based upon the economic and technological infrastructure). 

Meanwhile, Khrushchev's reorganization of the industrial ministries in 1957 exacerbated the problem of bureaucratic divisions between R&D and industrial enterprises.  Before Khrushchev's reorganization, the majority of applied research institutes were under the administrative umbrella of the various glavki.  In 1957, however, the Party had transferred most of the R&D organizations to the Regional Councils.  Formerly concentrating on limited areas of technology under the glavki, these institutes under the Regional Councils were intended to serve a variety of different industries.  As one would expect, Soviet analysts noted the decline in the quality of R&D work done during the sovnarkhozy. 

The problem was that the sovnarkhozy did not have the authority to force technical research institutes to help enterprises with innovation, even when their help was essential.  Moreover, Parrott points out that even though the local Party officials were eager to bring the industrial R&D institutes more directly under their control, "this did not mean that they were actively committed to innovation."  Under the sovnarkhozy, the organic connections between technological research and industry grew fewer in number.  For instance, of the 800-plus targets for new technology in the 1959 plan of the Ukrainian sovnarkhozy, only 50 percent were met.  "Not only did the economic councils fail to fulfill many of these targets, they also tried to avoid embarrassment by having the lagging projects removed from their plans in the course of the planned year."  As a result of the Khrushchev policies, therefore, technological progress slowed considerably.  "In most sectors the hallmarks of organic administration. . . were still missing."  The need for new technology was badly underfulfilled:  new equipment was frequently described as inadequate or even less economical than the machinery it replaced;  the machine-building sectors remained underfunded and understaffed;  and the lack of communication of new ideas between scientists and technologists continued. 

To make matters worse, Soviet analysts incorrectly diagnosed the problem with the system as due to the duplication and overlap of R&D work in the different regions.  And the solution to the problem was equally incorrect:  the Soviet leadership, in an era of de-Stalinization, resurrected the system of planning technological innovation like the NTO under Lenin.  This marked the recentralization of R&D under state guidance in alignment with the linear model.  It will be recalled that the decentralization of R&D institutes under the direction of the various glavki in the mid-thirties had been relatively successful because the glavki themselves exerted bureaucratic push on enterprises to innovate as part of their overall pressure to raise productivity.  This system produced numerous incremental improvements, which accounted for over 80 percent of Soviet technological innovation. [1]   This system had remained in place until the sovnarkhozy reforms.  Amann Cooper and Davies found that under this system, "the number of varieties of the new technology developed and put into production has tended to be surprisingly high." [2]  

     But with the creation of the State Committee of the Council of Ministers for the Coordination of Scientific Research (hereinafter referred to simply as the State Committee) in 1961 as the modern successor of the NTO, mechanistic and bureaucratic divisions increased.  According to Professor Vucinich, the State Committee was a single organization entrusted with planning and directing both applied and basic research on a national scale. [3]   Based upon faith in the linear model, the functions of the State Committee were:  "to determine the future lines of scientific and technological concentration;  to coordinate the work of scientific institutions related to the key technological processes;  to supervise the preparation of plans for current research and development;  to plan the future territorial expansion of research centers;  to exercise general supervision over research activities on all levels of the institutional hierarchy;  to determine the main lines of capital investment in science;  to devise methods for raising the level of scientific productivity;  to plan the establishment of intersectoral research centers," and so on. [4]   Obviously, the idea of planning both scientific and technological progress was absurd;  but it became state policy. 

     By the end of Khrushchev's tenure as First Secretary, the organic connections between R&D institutes and industry were so bad that even the State Committee failed to overcome regional barriers.  Without the ability to exert bureaucratic push at the enterprise level, the State Committee had trouble forcing innovation based upon ideas developed in the research institutes--even within the same ministry.  For example, institutes subordinated to the State Committee for Automation and Machine Building developed a new computer for automated industrial processes.  But as Parrott points out, the State Committee was unable to have several small batches of these computers produced at a plant controlled by the Severodonetsk sovnarkhoz, because sovnarkhoz officials ignored the State Committee's order and refused to include this task in the plant's production plan. [5]  

       Despite all of these failures, Khrushchev still believed that the Soviet system could outstrip the West economically, the basis of which would be technological progress. [6]   The dissolution of Stalin's organic links between research and industry forced Khrushchev to look for technological fixes abroad.  And he was more willing to borrow technology from the West than Stalin had been--of necessity.  Khrushchev believed that autarky was harmful in the economy and especially pernicious in the development of technology.  And he thought that the better the study and introduction of the newest achievements of world science and technology were organized in the USSR, "the more successfully scientific-technological progress will proceed." [7]   His willingness to grant political concessions to West Germany in return for technology was listed as one of the reasons for his fall from power.

      The Brezhnev Era and the STR

     The Brezhnev leadership's approach to technological progress can be called a "modified linear model," which is characterized by the linear model plus a return to the Stalinist practice of controlling scientists.  The main feature of the modified linear model is the centralization of planning of both scientific and technological development, which Khrushchev started.  One Soviet author put it this way:  "The headlong development of the revolution in science and technology, accompanied by growth in the number of scientific institutions, as well as of personnel working in science, and by an increase in the volume of financial investments in science, requires a strengthening of the integrative functions of the management of science and reinforcement of elements of centralization and coordination for the purposes of increasing the economic efficiency of this sphere of social activity." [8]   In 1965, the Brezhnev leadership further embellished Khrushchev's top down approach to technological progress by creating the State Committee for Science and Technology (SCST, the successor to Khrushchev's State Committee), which was to oversee both the planning of basic research in the Academy system and the planning of technological research in the ministries. [9]   While correctly separating science from technology with respect to planning, the SCST nevertheless had the impossible task of planning both science and technology from the top down.  Here is how the system worked. 

     The planning of innovation began with the State Planning Committee (GOSPLAN), which assigns certain targets to the ministries, based upon high-level decisions made by the SCST.  "The function of the committee is to implement a single state policy in the field of scientific and technological progress and to assure the fullest possible use of the achievements of science and technology in production." [10]   Beginning planning of technology with the planning of fundamental research, the SCST implements the recommendations of the Academy of Sciences, which "identifies fundamentally new possibilities for technological progress and prepares recommendations for their use in the economy." [11]   The purpose of the plan is to "give maximum consideration to the possibilities created by scientific and technical progress by also provide for the creation of the best conditions for its realization." [12]   Ostensibly, this system is a "belt drive" from fundamental research to applied research to production.

     An executive arm of GOSPLAN, the SCST evaluates new technological proposals and makes recommendations based upon their feasibility.  After having received instructions from the State Planning Committee, the various ministries in their turn distribute these assignments to specific enterprises in the control figures issued to them. [13]   These assignments are evaluated in many cases by an ad hoc Enterprise Innovation Commission, which is chaired by the director of an enterprise or the chief engineer, and which determines the feasibility of the assignments.  The recommendations of the Enterprise Innovation Commission return to the State Planning Committee for further refinement, and so on.  When the list of planned innovations is finally established, then it is integrated into the overall enterprise plan;  and once the decision to proceed with an innovation is made final by incorporation in the plan, "then the State Planning Committee bears a clear responsibility for exerting pressure [through the SCST] on the organization charged with the implementation, such as ministries and enterprises." [14]

     Created in 1965, the SCST is responsible to "ensure the cohesion of state policy in the field of scientific and technical progress." [15]   It has at its disposal a reserve fund, and it has access to the State Committee for Material Supplies for the distribution of special supplies for important projects. [16]   The SCST approves research plans, allocates money, and checks on the results of engineering research conducted by the USSR Academy of Sciences, the local academies of science in the Soviet republics, and research institutes in industry, medicine, and agriculture.  It has always been headed by Party members who are closely associated with the defense industry. [17]   Before the creation of the SCST, the glavki were required by the Council of Ministers to reduce production costs in its enterprises by a certain percentage, which was often translated by the minister's technical staff into orders to introduce small-scale innovations capable of greater efficiency. [18]   But the SCST was empowered to aid in the replacement of old production processes with entirely new technologies, concentrating on radical, large-scale innovation. 

     In alignment with the linear model, the SCST has several institutes devoted to the flow of information from basic to applied science, and on applied research in other fields.  These institutes are the "All-Union Institute of Scientific and Technical Information," the "Institute of Problems of Control," and "All-Union Information Center."  The institutes directly under the SCST are all of a general, primarily informational character, and do not include laboratory research. [19]  

     As mentioned above, the most important thing to notice about the SCST is that it is the modern successor to the failed NTO under Lenin in the twenties. [20]   Like the NTO of the twenties, it is staffed and run mainly by scientists and technologists.  But unlike the NTO of the twenties, which had been run by politically suspect personnel like Ipatieff and other Mechanists who had little use for Bolshevik dogma, the SCST is run mainly by scientists and technologists who are Party members who are responsive to Party goals.  It has always been headed by Party members with strong connections to the Ministry of Defense. 

     Moreover, with the announcement that science had become a direct productive force in the USSR in 1966, the Party believed in its ability to plan science and technology (in accordance with the linear model) because of the new "scientific" discipline of naukovedenie (literally, "science management"). [21]   Under S.R. Mikulinski's direction, the Institute for the History of Natural Science and Technology (attached to the Academy of Sciences) was to develop naukovedenie to be used by the SCST as both the theoretical and practical basis for planning science and technology in the USSR. [22]  

     This new branch of science is called "prognostication," which, by means of special mathematical and analytical tools and the most powerful computer technology--by drawing in as experts very different and very erudite scientists--"forecasts the results of the application of knowledge acquired today."  V. Rapoport (head of the laboratory of the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Systems Research [VNIISI]) adds that the ever-wider application of prognostication "is the very first basis" of the objective estimation of the urgency of selected themes and objects of investigation, for the substantiated planning of science and its effective control." [23]  

     Rapoport views the advancement of science as commensurate with the acquisition of scientific knowledge, hence the reliance on computers to systematize and store it.  The reason for this is that information is paradoxical;  "if it is recorded somehow, is a practically everlasting product, but at the same time is surprisingly perishable." [24]   New knowledge, especially when implemented in production, "reduces the value of previous knowledge." [25]   To somehow preserve obtained knowledge for use without allowing it to be lost in time and space, more and more specialists are engaged, "not in research, but in simply recording, systematizing, storing and retrieving already available information." [26] (Emphasis mine.)  The result is an increased "labor-intensiveness" of science and scientific work, making it a mass profession.  Needless to say, this approach does not mark the transition of science from the "intensive" to the "extensive" path of growth. [27]   

     Based upon the belief in the validity of the new sciences of naukovedenie and prognostication, the Soviets believed that they could duplicate the millions of incremental technological adjustments through planning.  Correctly noting that technological progress is a systems-wide phenomenon, the Brezhnev leadership attempted to manage the development of science and technology through their own "systems approach," which is the conscious management of the interaction of various "subsystems," that is, education, research, technology, production and consumption.  As Gvishiani et al put it, "Planned and purposeful development of a country's scientific and technological potential is governed by objective laws;  it calls for the establishment of correct proportions between its structural elements and regulation of factors leading to disproportions." [28]   Since Soviet planners believe that science and technology follow "objective laws" of evolution, the systems approach of managing science is emerging as a scientific discipline of its own.  And the "science of science" ostensibly deals with the general laws "governing" the development of science and technology.  "Its purpose is to work out both the theoretical foundations for organizing, planning, and directing scientific activity and a concrete set of measures dictated by the objective logic of the development of science and technology." [29]  

     Believing in the linear model and the superior ability of socialism to plan technological progress, the Brezhnev leadership put pressure on natural scientists and technologists to be responsive to Party goals.  For example, Rachkov suggests that the Party has the "leading role" in the management of scientific research and development.  According to Rachkov, "the party analyzes the interaction between scientific and social needs;  it defines science's strategic goals, as well as its (anticipated) social and political consequences." [30]   Perhaps the best expression of the leading role of the Party in the guidance of science is Alekseev and Il'in's The Principle of Partiinost' and Natural Science [Printsip partiinosti i estestvoznanie], published in 1972, at the time when the STR became very prominent in Soviet media and literature.  Devoted to reconciling science with dialectical materialism, they put forth the view that partiinost' gives scientists the correct "spiritual" orientation to their work, which is a "revolutionary-critical relationship toward reality":  "The principle of partiinost' demands devotion to the ideals of communism and an actively effective participation in their realization." [31]   According to Alekseev and Il'in, partiinost' does not impair the creativity and internal direction of scientists because the interests and goals of communism are ostensibly identical with the interests and goals of science.  Only the "correct partiinyi approach" to scientific work will enable the scientist to find "objective truth." [32]  

     Furthermore, the Brezhnev leadership launched a purge of all those in the natural sciences who exhibited excessive individualism and professional independence.  Stephen Fortescue (research fellow at the University of Birmingham Centre for Russian and East European Studies), demonstrated that the Primary Party Organizations (PPOs) at research institutes, which are responsible for what can generally be called the political health of the institute, began as early as 1964 to hold seminars countering the influence of bourgeois ideology in Soviet science.  The PPOs stepped up this activity against the dissident atmosphere of the mid- to late-1960s, and brought it to a climax in the intense crackdown on dissidence in 1967 with the censure of the Lebedev institute. [33]  The nature of the content of these anti-dissident seminars is revealing:  "A whole network of politinformatory, both professional and part-time, were used by PPOs to speak on such topics as 'Ideological diversions of modern imperialism,' 'The scientific-technical revolution and the ideological manoeuvres of bourgeois propaganda.'" [34] (Emphasis mine.)  Western versions of the STR were put forth as ideologically unorthodox, and those who held to such views were systematically persecuted. [35]   Part of the fear, no doubt, which the Party exhibited against the revival of "Mechanism as a tendency," to use Joravsky's phrase, was the fear of the revival of technocratic tendencies, which the Large Soviet Encyclopedia identifies as a "distorted form" of the reality of the STR. [36]  

     With respect to the administration of research institutes, for example, the position of the director was strengthened to become the "plenipotentiary" representative of the state, "who manages the establishment with the rights of one-man management and bears full responsibility for its work." [37]   The director is an extremely important person in research institutes because of the military organization of the institutes.  Of the director's responsibilities, the most important are planning the direction of research and managing scientific workers. [38]   The interesting thing about this situation is that the position of institute director is most typically a Party appointment. [39]  

     The state's response to those who espoused the autonomy of scientists in accordance with the Western version of the STR was severe repression and intimidation.  Medvedev was forcibly retained at a psychiatric hospital, despite the testimony of several psychiatrists who affirmed his basic mental health. [40]   Sakharov, of course, became the main lightning rod of anti-bourgeois activity.  His samizdat manuscript entitled Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom openly argued that the first condition for the flourishing of science (and technology) in the USSR was the autonomy of scientists. [41]   He also championed a state system run by scientists. 

     It is significant that Sakharov's version of the linear model did not envision the leading role of the Party, in contrast to the Brezhnev coalition's version.  The state condemned Sakharov to internal exile, as is well known, and all Soviet scientists were faced with the choice of either signing a letter denouncing him, or losing their jobs.  (This campaign no doubt had a dual purpose:  to condemn Sakharov, and to weed out those scientists who were too deeply infected with the bourgeois ideology of science.)  Gauging from the response which the state took against the best representatives of the traditional linear model (in which scientists ostensibly play the leading role in all of technological and social progress free from Party control), it is clear that the designation of science as a productive force did not mean that science had been deemed non-ideological in nature.  It was not a return to a neo-Mechanist position as under Lenin and the NTO.  It did not mark the de-Stalinization of science:  on the contrary, it marked the re-Stalinization of science. 

     Consider the following circumstance.  Shortly after the STR had been announced as the central part of the 10th five year plan (1971), M.N. Rutkevich's neo-Deborinite work entitled Dialectical Materialism came out in print.  In fact, this work marked a new level of ideological extremism in the Deborinite tradition.  A.M. Deborin himself merely argued that the laws of dialectic (from Hegel's philosophy) should be the self-conscious principles behind the scientist's work;  but Rutkevich went farther than that, arguing that Marxism is a philosophy able to predict the future not only of social and political history, but as a science able to evaluate theories of natural science. [42]   Rutkevich argued, in effect, that Marxism is the queen of the sciences, the supreme arbiter in all scientific matters, not unlike Lysenko's description of Stalin's council as so full of "power of scientific prevision," that it made his heart stand still with pride. [43]   In order to make sure that the meaning of Marxism was not lost on the populace, the Ministry of Education adopted Rutkevich's work as its central textbook for philosophy departments throughout the USSR. 

     In accordance with Rutkevich's work, the 24th Party Congress of 1971 announced changes in the Party rules concerning the governing of research institutes which dramatically enhanced the Party's supervision of research.  PPOs were given the right to supervise the administration of scientific and scholarly institutions in which they operated.  "This meant that they were now empowered to check whether the decisions taken by the academic council of a research or higher eduction institution fully accorded with the instructions of higher Party organs." [44]   Yet while supervising the direction of research, the Party failed to instill in scientists and technologists attitudes of partiinost':  Party officials consistently reported that "scientists frequently lacked the knowledge and the inclination to bridge the gap between science and politics." [45]   There were frequent clashes between researchers and Party members arising from divergent professional and political values. 

     Parenthetically, it is worth noting in passing that the CPSU rejected the idea of convergence (an idea based upon the linear model) with the West precisely because the idea of convergence clashed with their own modified linear model.  Olga Matich pointed out that the reformist intelligentsia adopted the idea of convergence both because of their hope for a technologically advanced society and because it buttressed their position within the system. [46]   Thus a Party hack (Bessonov) complained that the convergence theory, based upon the alleged objective non-ideological growth of science and technological determinism was nothing more than an attempt to "extend the influence of bourgeois ideology at the expense of Marxist-Leninist ideology." [47]   Soviet theorists attacked the theory of convergence for supporting the idea that the scientists and technicians will replace the politicians in "technocratic utopias." [48]   Indeed, the USSR's own attempt at "technocratic utopia," in which science was to have created new culture-transforming technologies, had already been tried and failed.   

     Thus, the Party leadership's rival version of the Western technological revolution was a "modified linear model" which began with the Party and ended with society.  The STR became the symbol of the Party's bureaucratic push from the late sixties and into the eighties.  Fortescue pointed out that "Brezhnev adopted the STR as a slogan to be used to shake the established industrial bureaucracies out of their anti-innovatory ways." [49]   The STR was presented in "politically acceptable terms," suggesting that "technical development can bring about desirable social development;  that technical development can bring about desirable social development only if it is directed and controlled by a progressive political force, that is, the CPSU;  and that the STR, while able to realize its true potential only in socialist conditions, is nevertheless a universal phenomenon." [50]  

     Yet the STR was clearly a linear model of technological and social progress.  For example,  V.G. Afanasev stated that "the scientific and technological revolution is a dynamic, constantly improving and developing 'science--technology--production--man' system in which science plays the leading role." [51]   Likewise Mikulinski states that science has become "the leading factor of technological progress and the development of social production. [52]   Likewise, a 1969 editorial in Voprosy filosofii restated the Marxist-Leninist linear model, saying that the development of the material basis of a new society could only be created when the development of science is sufficiently high.  "Therefore, the development of science is considered to be the most important task of the entire society tantamount to achieving prosperity." [53]  

     But this linear model is one in which the Party ostensibly controls the process.  Kneen observed, for example, that the Party hoped its expanding influence among natural scientists and technologists would influence the researchers toward the practical needs of production.  "In this way the Party could achieve the more tangible role in science which had previously eluded it, and also benefit from the prestige associated with scientific and technical advance." [54]   Gvishiani et al clearly stated, moreover, that the Soviet STR is a controlled, Party-directed process.  "Science and technology in the USSR develop according to plan." [55]   They added that the principles for state planning of technological progress began with Lenin, and "its basic principles have remained unchanged throughout Soviet times, and practice has confirmed their objectivity and expediency." [56]   Likewise, N.P. Fedorenko stated that "natural sciences even in fundamental research cannot any longer follow their own internal logic and produce only abstract knowledge.  Emerging as a direct productive force, science itself becomes the object of planning and control."  It is no exaggeration that the STR, both in theory and in practice, was "primarily aimed at enhancing centralized control in order to increase levels of production." [57]  

Problems with the Modified Linear Model

     Stalin favored the men of practice over the theorists, with some justification.  One of the strengths of the Stalinist system of promoting technological innovation was the emphasis on practice over and above theory.  As mentioned above (chapter two, pages 32-36), this is due to the differences between science and technology:  scientific theory is not always useful when it comes to the trial and error methods of technological innovation.  Moreover, the Stalinist leadership's decentralization of the planning of R&D in 1935 under the auspices of the various ministries relieved central planners of an impossible burden.  By emphasizing growth of industrial output and letting the ministries and glavki make their own decisions concerning technological innovation, the Stalinist leadership did not show dramatic technological advances, but instead posted a relatively impressive number of small scale, incremental innovations which accounted for the bulk of indigenous Soviet technological progress. [58]   Despite its crippling faults, this policy created more organic connections between R&D and industry than centralized, nationwide planning of technological progress has ever been capable of producing. 

     Brezhnev's modified linear model suffered from the same types of problems as the traditional linear model under Lenin.  For example, a series of 1968 decrees by the Central Committee ordered the compilation of long-term scientific-technological prognoses for the creation of new technologies.  At least five planning agencies were involved with the decrees (the Academy of Sciences, the State Committee for Science and Technology, the State Construction Committee, Gosplan, and the State Committee for Prices), making the problem of cutting through departmental barriers acute. [59]   In 1972, the Party again instructed the Academy and the State Committee for Science and Technology to write a fifteen year plan for a "comprehensive program of scientific-technological progress and its socioeconomic consequences for 1976-1990 with justifications and calculations." [60]   Yet quarrels between the natural scientists and the economists over implementation of these plans erupted.  As late as 1979, the outlines of the fifteen year plan had not been finalized, let alone completed.  

     The problem of the mechanistic divisions between the central planners, R&D institutes and industry persisted.  This is a central theme of Berliner's outstanding work on innovation in Soviet industry, which drew most of its sources from the period directly following Brezhnev's ministerial reorganization and the Liberman reforms.  His description of the types of problems the new system encountered fit precisely the description of the mechanistic organizational type. 

     The main problem with the applied R&D institutes attached to the glavki was that they were primarily independent of the enterprises that used their services. [61]   As Berliner put it, "Because of the sharp organizational divisions, technical work done at one stage may be insufficiently coordinated with that to be done in later stages.  Design bureaus working on a new machine, for example, 'often do not know at what enterprises it will be used.'" [62]   And Berliner provides overwhelmingly abundant evidence that the fulfillment of the typical research institute's "quota" of new technologies had little direct connection with the actual needs of industry.  Like the production quotas in other Soviet industries, production quotas in the industrial research institutes paid little attention to quality, only quantity.

     For example, in 1966, an analysis was done of the 45,000 changes in blueprints and drawings which various enterprises made in the work of the design organizations.  "Sixty-five percent were found to be the result of simple carelessness, such as arithmetic errors.  In other cases, inadequate testing obliged innovating enterprises to make changes in design after production had begun, which drove up the cost of production, lengthened the start-up period, and reduced the return to the innovation." [63]   Another 1967 inquiry into the work of a special engineering bureau for grinding equipment discovered that the engineers regularly fulfilled their design quota;  but out of the 57 completed projects, 13 were rejected outright as totally useless, while 20 more were returned due to fundamental defects in the work. [64]   Thus, although fulfilling its production quota of new projects, only 42 percent of the projects of the engineering section in question could be considered successful.  Nove likewise reports that the success indicators of machinery-producing enterprises were, until 1975, stated in tons of machinery;  other success indicators (i.e., measured in quantity or in rubles) similarly neglected quality and actual need as success criteria. [65]

     The lack of organic connections between R&D and industry meant that research workers had little incentive to produce something useful.  Hence, Academician Trapeznikov complained in a 1967 editorial to Pravda that the independence of research institutes had created a monopoly of power which had resulted in the stagnation of ideas.  Here is the typical position of the customer (the industrial enterprise) who is faced with poor work from the institute, as he described it:  "The customer can only say to the design organization, 'Please, do at least slightly better.'  And the monopolistic design organization will answer, 'We can do no better;  if you don't like it, do it yourself!'  And the enterprise will have to content itself with this answer." [66]  

     The main incentives which the Soviet leadership used to spur technological progress were bonuses. [67]   But there was is a big problem with that approach:  If the special bonuses for innovation were small, the administrator would not take the time and effort to see that the change was rammed through;  and if the incentive was very large, managers tended to neglect fulfilling the production quota, which was also rewarded by a bonus.  Self interest motivated the Soviet manager as much as any other manager, and therefore, "the relative size of the bonus for this or that special purpose often determines the manager's decision to concentrate on this or that objective." [68]   Soviet administrators tended to concentrate on the larger bonuses and pay little attention to the small ones.  And there were no bonuses for the orgtekhplan, the small-scale innovations and organizational improvements which cumulatively account for majority of improvements in efficiency. [69]   "Thus the very potency of the bonus as an incentive militates against its use for too many special purposes which may compete with each other." [70]  

     Moreover, since the success of enterprise management was determined above all else by fulfillment of production plans, administrators avoided innovation, since this invariably involved disruption of productive processes. [71]   Berliner stated his agreement with Nove's assessment, pointing out that plan fulfillment is the first objective of management, "not only because it is the principal criterion of performance, but because a large portion of the manager's monthly take-home pay was tied to it.  Plan fulfillment added approximately 20-50 percent to one's base salary, compared to the average of about 1 percent earned for successful innovations." [72] 

     Another reason why innovation was not in the enterprise director's interests was the fact that they generally do not remain in their positions for very long.  While the kinks are being ironed out of the new technology and new supplies (if required) are being procured either through official channels or the tolkachi, several successive periods of plan underfulfillment may have ensued.  This leaves a black mark on the director's report card, and severely hurts his chances for upward mobility into the ranks of the glavki bureaucracy.  With every innovation, "there is likelihood that the current plan will suffer, and so will the incomes of many employees, as well as the standing of the manager himself." [73]  

     Furthermore, with each innovation, the compulsory plan-indicators are raised to match the new productive capabilities.  Thus, "a successful innovation that fits into the established indicators positively is quite likely to be followed by an arbitrary upward change in these indicators, or downward amendment of the norms applicable to payments into the incentive funds." [74]   And new products which the firm may produce as a result of new technical capabilities may be priced at levels lower than the older standard products based upon older technologies. [75]   Understandably, few administrators want to raise their production quotas.  In addition, Soviet managers are required by law to send their engineers--at their own expense--throughout the country to demonstrate to others how they accomplished their innovation and what they learned from the experience. [76]   This is a real disincentive to undertake in-house R&D and innovation. 

     The main problem which the typically conservative Soviet manager faces in technological innovation is the problem of supply, which is well known as a structural flaw with the Soviet command economy. [77]   "The core of the matter," argues Berliner, "is that managers simply don't trust the planning system to provide them with the supplies and materials they need in the right quantity and quality, and at the right time." [78]   And this flaw is exacerbated in the case of innovation.  If technological innovation (which often requires inputs of new resources) is to succeed in the Soviet system, it requires a corresponding change in the pattern of inflow if inputs. [79]   "It may require new materials with which the producer is unfamiliar.  It may require new sources of supply and the establishment of commercial relations with new producing units with whom the innovator is unacquainted.  The new supplier may have different modes of operation and may be unfamiliar with the procedures and needs of his new customer." [80]   All these factors make innovation an extremely risky business for the Soviet manager.  If current arrangements with suppliers are in order and functioning smoothly, why should the Soviet manager adopt an innovation which might not only raise the production quota, but also threaten his system of supply? 

     Sometimes, the Soviet manager had no choice in the matter:  he may have been forced to simply act on an order from a Party or government boss;  but generally, he had a range of choices, and the decision to innovate was the least attractive of them all.  In general, "the avoidance of innovation is a device for minimizing uncertainty over supply." [81]   And "the greater the scale of the proposed innovation, the greater the magnitude of the supply problems to be anticipated.  And the greater the unreliability of the system of supply, the greater the resistance to innovation." [82]   "For want of a nail" is a parable employed by innovating mangers.  Often the lack of a few basic items may cripple even entirely new production facilities. 

      The Limits of Bureaucratic Push

     The Brezhnev government's response to the failure of the mechanistic system to produce innovation was another series of reorganizational reforms aimed at creating stronger organic links between the R&D institutes and the enterprises which they served.  This marked the origins of the attempt to dissolve the glavki and replace them with "production associations" or "scientific-production associations," which included industrial R&D institutes.  The idea behind this reorganization was to facilitate both better supply and technical progress by bringing producers and consumers under one administrative umbrella.  With respect to the "scientific-production associations," the supply of R&D inputs was to become an organic part of production rather than independent services.  The 1973 decree clearly stated, for example, that the principal goal was "the organic combining of the achievements of science and technology with the advantages of the socialist economic system." [83]  

     Predictably, as researchers are forced to work on practical problems with little theoretical interest, many researchers expressed fears that they would be "dissolved" in the work of production and that "science may wither away." [84]   Resistance to these new organizations came from industrial administrators as well, due to the attempt to retain bureaucratic autonomy.  "Prominent among the lower-level opponents of [scientific-production] associations were enterprise directors, who apparently feared that a local association, because it could stay better informed about their than a ministerial glavk, would further circumscribe their autonomy.  One Party official remarked that some directors resisted associations out of a fear of losing their 'social position,' since they were presently members of the borough party committee and were subordinate directly to Moscow." [85]   Dumachev stated that, to many who had grown accustomed to regarding the enterprise as the basic unit in industry, "it is not easy to reconcile themselves to the idea that it is necessary to remove this level of independence and that all its major functions should be transferred to the association." [86]  

     Dumachev makes it clear that the main role of the Party is in overcoming these mechanistic barriers.  The Party ostensibly organizes "objective factors" against "subjective ones," thus promoting "the cohesion of all personnel of the association into a single production collective." [87]   And the central role of the Party in the production associations is in supervising technological innovation, guiding the work from research through development to application.  Dumachev thus reports a reduction in lead time in the development of new technologies:  "Prior to the founding of the association, it took from two to five years to bring new products into production.  Now the time needed for research and development work has been reduced by an average of 18 percent, and the entire cycle from beginning of research to serial manufacture has been cut by one-half to two-thirds." [88]   Dumachev states that the "intimate connections" between the Party organizations and enterprises facilitates technological progress.      Yet clearly, the Party was not equal to the task of overcoming bureaucratic resistance.  For example, in April of 1973, the Soviet leadership decreed a general reorganization of industry to make the production association the standard administrative structure.  The Central Committee ordered the industrial ministries to submit reorganizational plans within the following six months, abolishing most ministerial glavki and replacing them with production associations.  By 1975, however, the number of scientific-production associations numbered only 110, while the number of production associations numbered 2,200.  By 1978, the Party had supervised the construction of a mere 150 scientific-production associations which had previously comprised 520 enterprises and 120 scientific research institutes and design bureaus. [89]   By the end of 1976, there were over 3,000 production associations. [90]   Yet these figures represent only a quarter of all enterprises to have been merged by the end of 1975. [91]   The slow pace of reorganization forced the Party to continually push back the timetable for complete reorganization. [92]   Moreover, the independence of many enterprises were apparently not "dissolved" by the mergers, with the glavki retaining significant administrative control in many cases.

     Furthermore, the attempt to create a top-down "systems approach" to technological innovation was crippled by the supervision of a plethora of small-scale innovations which the pressures of the market usually produce.  For example, Nove reports that a plan for the introduction of new technology in Ukraine envisaged 2,900 measures. [93]   Obviously, the attempt to oversee and control this process is absurd, even by Soviet standards.  In this respect, Lewin is correct when he states that "the bigger the effort to supervise, to check, to censor, and to curb, the stronger the factors that work to paralyze the very tools able to do the job." [94]  

     Hence, in 1981 Aganbegian reported that the rate of and absolute growth in capital investments in the USSR was continuing to decline sharply. [95]   Between 1950 and 1955, for example, investment in capital stock was 12.5 percent of GNP;  but between 1970 and 1975, investment had declined to 6.9 percent. [96]   Moreover, it is clear that this capital stock does not represent investment in particularly productive technologies, since the increase in capital stock rose proportionally higher than output. [97]   Without "market pull," many of the new technologies did not prove to be more efficient than the ones they replaced.  Nove illustrates this point when he describes the Party's frustration at successful innovation which paid little attention to greater efficiency or profitability. 

Gorbachev and the STR

     Like Brezhnev and Andropov before him, Gorbachev's answer to the Soviet economic slowdown has been technological progress, the transition of the economy from the extensive to the intensive path of growth.  The economic growth of the USSR has slowed from about 5 percent a year in the 1960s to around 2 percent in the 1980s.  And the main cause of this slowdown is the decline in the rate of productivity, that is, "the efficiency with which each employed person produces goods and services." [98]   Gorbachev's strategy is to increase this rate of productivity through massive investments in more efficient technology.  As Aganbegian wrote in 1985, "The Party considers that the stimulation of the economy, its transition to an intensive basis, as well as a comprehensive increase in efficiency are crucial conditions for the further development of Soviet society and a key area of social progress.  There are no alternatives to this line in our country." [99]   One sees in this statement a sense of urgency about the failure of the system to produce te